We may be as good as we please, if we please to be good.
Barrow.
74.
The round of a passionate man’s life is in contracting debts in his passion which his virtue obliges him to pay. He spends his time in outrage and acknowledgment, injury and reparation.
Johnson.
75.
To reprehend well is the most necessary and the hardest part of friendship. Who is it that does not sometimes merit a check, and yet how few will endure one? Yet wherein can a friend more unfold his love than in preventing dangers before their birth, or in bringing a man to safety who is travelling on the road to ruin? I grant there is a manner of reprehending which turns a benefit into an injury, and then it both strengthens error and wounds the giver. When thou chidest thy wandering friend do it secretly, in season, in love, not in the ear of a popular convention, for oftentimes the presence of a multitude makes a man take up an unjust defence, rather than fall into a just shame.
Feltham.
76.
I put no account on him who esteems himself just as the popular breath may chance to raise him.